My Take On Prosper's New Forums

Yesterday I mentioned that I don't like the new Prosper forums but I hesitated to list my reasons. With just a day of mulling, it wasn't enough time to be thoughtful. After sleeping on it, I do not like it and find that the change is a big step backward, with the possibility of Prosper re-establishing parity over time if they stop acting authoritarian.

I will start with the good. I like that Prosper has linked the forum ID to the Prosper lender/borrower ID. I'm not a fan of sock puppets and prefer that someone stand behind their comments. Having accountability improves the quality of discourse. I also like having one login for the forums and Prosper proper, but the trade-off is that Prosper logs you out after 20 minutes. Unfortunately, my good list ends here.

Esthetically, I do not like the new forums. The font sizes are disproportionate, with really tiny text for the most important portions (I'm younger and work on a 21" monitor - if I'm complaining about text size, some folks are really having issues). The breadcrumb menus disappeared and it's no longer possible to tell who started a thread. I can gripe, but all of these are implementation details. Prosper bought or developed a new platform and it's technically feasible to clean it up if the desire is there.

Philosophically, I do not like the new forums. They have created a walled and heavily guarded city where unapproved conversation receives a swift cracked down much like a miniature version of China's internet. The new platform appears to have more advanced filtering and moderating features than the old forum. All postings currently require approval before they go live, although that requirement seems to go in fits and bursts, and has greatly reduced forum posting traffic. There is the implication that if posts are denied in moderation, the poster will be e-mailed. I doubt this is active since I, like many others, have submitted several posts over the last 24 hrs that seem silently killed. Prosper has also taken to squashing or rewriting URLs for non-Prosper links and text. Try to write a message or refer to prospers.org, for example, and it gets rewritten or squashed. This can be tested by composing a message and checking the preview as shown in the screen captures below first showing the composition view:

And the preview view:

With this level of monitoring and oversight, it should not be surprising that discussion of the forum's methods of preventing open dialog have been quickly and quietly deleted.

When caught in a Chinese finger trap, you will not get out by pulling harder. Prosper is attempting to build a community out of it's lenders and borrowers and yet, when battling against the flexibility and openness of the internet, try harder to control the content on their forums using increasingly aggressive techniques. They only get stuck further and their community suffers.

And this is why I do not like the new forums. I think the community has lost something tangible. If Prosper has gained something, they're not saying what it is, but I believe that when the collective community loses, so does Prosper. There is always the possibility that Prosper's philosophy toward the forums will change, but every indicator is that their attitude has been toward increasing control and increasing restrictions on conversations. And it is here where we're at an impasse.

Update: Fixed a few typos.